When Health Insurance Is An Oxymoron

June 8, 1999|By MARIE COCCO Newsday

On the TV screen: A couple, Harry and Louise, sitting at their breakfast table, perusing the morning papers.

HARRY: Hey, see this, Louise? The health insurance industry is concerned there are more people without insurance now than there were when that old Clinton health plan went down. Their lobbying group down in Washington wants a new plan to cover millions more people.

LOUISE: But aren't they the folks who created us six years ago to scare the heck out of people and kill the Clinton plan in the first place?

HARRY: Yeah, but listen to this. The Health Insurance Association of America now says that if there's no action in the next 10 years, about a quarter of the population under 65 will be without insurance.

LOUISE: So what's their bright idea for fixing this?

HARRY: They want the federal government to spend $60 billion a year, and give people who can't afford to buy insurance the public money to go out and buy it.

LOUISE: And who would they buy it from?

HARRY: Insurance companies, of course.

LOUISE: So they want $60 billion a year worth of new business. Where is the money going to come from?

HARRY: Well, I guess from new taxes or that surplus they're always talking about, the one that's supposed to be saved for Social Security.

LOUISE: Hmm. So we give them millions more customers who will spend our tax money buying their insurance policies. Well, at least some more people would be covered. But how would the taxpayers know the people would really get the kind of coverage they need? What kind of benefits would there be? And how do we know the insurance companies won't just drop people, like those Medicare HMOs did?

HARRY: It doesn't say. But as part of the plan, the insurers say they want to be exempt from state laws that mandate minimum benefits. And they don't want federal requirements, either. They say they cost too much and stifle innovation."

LOUISE: Innovation? You mean like the innovation I read about the other day, where Aetna decided to cut coverage of the drugs doctors prescribe most often? Or how about the innovation we found out about last year, when you couldn't have any more physical therapy on your back, even though the doctor said you really needed it?

HARRY: Now, Louise, don't get upset about that all over again.

LOUISE: Hey, wait a minute. Aren't these the same people who've been spending millions of dollars lobbying down in Washington against the HMO bill of rights? That's the bill that would give us back some say over our own medical care and let our doctors get back some of their rights, too.

HARRY: Sure, they're lobbying along with rest of the health-insurance industry, I guess.

Last year, I heard the industry spent more than $100,000 per congressman. It's their business, after all.

LOUISE: That's the point, Harry. It's their business. But it's our health care. Back in 1993 when they first created us, they told us the Clinton plan was bad because we'd lose our choice in health care and wouldn't get the kind of comprehensive coverage we were used to. And I believed them. But then the insurance companies just went ahead and did the same things. They turned cuts in our coverage into profits on their ledgers.

HARRY: Well, that's just the way things worked out after the Clinton plan went down. The saddest part is that there are more people now without insurance than there were even then. Like that young couple who just moved in down the block. That guy works like crazy -- two jobs -- but neither one of them carry insurance.

LOUISE: There's got to be a way for our country to get good health care to everybody. After all, every other country does.

HARRY: Right, so why not give the insurance companies' idea a try?

LOUISE: They want $60 billion of our money, without any strings attached. And part of it wouldn't even go to health care. It would go for those big executive salaries and for profits. That's not health care reform. That's corporate welfare.